


hush

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [50]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:25:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7155482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine the love scene we did not get to see between Jamie and Claire in ep 2x08!</p>
            </blockquote>





	hush

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](http://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/145106066462/imagine-the-love-scene-we-did-not-get-to-see) on tumblr

It had become too much.

Jenny had returned to her room, nodding a quick “good evening, good-sister” to Claire. Claire had planned to keep watching Jamie, secretly, quietly, not wanting him to know she was there.

But those soul-deep wounds had begun to bleed again. It didn’t matter how many months had passed - how many times Jamie had loved her body while she cradled his soul in her hands - how much time she had spent around Maggie, and Kitty, and Young Jamie. It all came rushing back.

Sadness. Loss. Regret.

Emptiness.

Quietly she stepped back into the Laird’s bedroom and soundlessly closed the door, wanting nothing more than to be alone in her grief.

Jamie was right - the burden was too great for either of them to bear, alone. Only by leaning on each other had they begun to heal over this past year.

But that didn’t mean that she still needed space sometimes to just…feel.

She curled up on Jamie’s side of the bed, atop the coverlet, her back the door, watching the small flame flicker at the end of the candle stub on the bedside table.

This was her home. She was wanted - needed - valued. Loved.

And now she had to leave it. All their hard work was for nothing, now. All those sacrifices in Paris - the time apart from Jamie that had nearly destroyed their marriage. The endless parties and dances and mind-numbing court intrigue.

And Faith. Her angel.

The rational side of Claire’s brain knew that she likely would have lost Faith, had it not been for the stress of being in Paris, let alone the duel. These things - this loss - happened as much in this time as it had in her own.

But the cold, impersonal facts did nothing to ease the aching hole in her heart.

Reflexively she glanced over to her dressing table, where the locket with Faith’s hair rested safely beside her pearls. It had been Jamie’s belated anniversary gift to her - he and Jenny had refashioned something from Ellen Fraser’s jewelry box, and carefully lay the strands of Faith’s impossibly fine hair behind a safe covering of glass.

The locket itself was beautiful - an oval of tooled silver that Jenny said her grandmother had given to Ellen when she was a girl. It was a beautiful piece of jewelry on its own - and its precious contents now made it Claire’s most prized possession.

She had found that on the days when she felt particularly adrift, just wearing the locket - keeping Faith close - eased the burdens on her mind. And Jamie, seeing her wear it, would always, *always* be even more attentive that usual. Stealing her away for a secret stroll amid the paddocks after lunch. Sitting beside her, reading over a ledger as she ground herbs in the stillroom Jenny had set aside for her. Reverently untying her laces, kissing every inch of skin as he exposed it in the warm glow of firelight in their bedroom. Falling asleep while still joined with her, promising unity, and safety, and a love so profound that words could not even begin to describe.

Tears slipped from her eyes, and she sniffled, hugging her arms around her shoulders, not wanting to feel so much. Not being able to help feeling so much.

Sometime later she heard the door open. Jamie padded to the bed, draped his plaid across the curve of her back, and bent to kiss her cheek.

Knowing - and not caring - that he had tasted her tears, she waited for him to crawl over her and settle on the mattress beside her, head propped up on one elbow, naked skin glowing in the waning firelight.

“Canna sleep again?”

She swallowed, gripping the plaid, rubbing the rough fibers between her fingers. Real. Solid.

“I watched you with Kitty, for a while. I can’t sleep without you anymore.”

He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. Caressing.

“Aye. She’s a bonny listener.”

“Are you afraid, Jamie?”

He pursed his lips, but did not pull away from her gaze.

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid, too.” There was no shame, no shyness, no hesitation. For there was only absolute truth - absolute trust - between them.

“I willa be parted from ye, Claire. I swear it. I canna do this on my own.”

“Good. Because I won’t let you do any of it without me.”

He smiled - sadly. Wistfully.

“I canna tell ye how glad I am for that. Because we’ve proven that we can get through anything, now, as long as we’re together.”

She lifted up one edge of the plaid and he silently slid beside her, wrapping the fabric around his back, pressing his chest to hers. Her face automatically found its safe place, in the hollow of his shoulder.

“You are so good with her, Jamie. So gentle. So patient.”

He just held her tighter, loving her. Giving her space.

“I was thinking the whole time - I love Kitty, I do. But it should have been Faith with you.”

And her body shuddered with a deeply suppressed sob. For now that she had her heart with her, she could finally release.

“I know.”

“I’m so sorry you never saw her. I had so many hours with her. I memorized all of her features. She was so beautiful - but she is yours as much as she is mine. And I’m so, so sorry you couldn’t have that.”

“Hush. You saw her. And you and I are one flesh, aye? So I was there, with her, because you were there.”

Hot tears trickled down his neck. He pulled back and drew his forehead to hers, breathing her in.

Then he peeled back the plaid and trailed his fingers down to the hem of her shift.

“Can ye sit up, please? I dinna want this between us now.”

Slowly she eased upright, and raised up her hands like a child. Gently he pulled the fabric - damp from her sweat - over her shoulders, and dropped it to the floor beside the bed.

Gently he pushed her shoulders back against the pillow. Her hair clouded all around her head. His breath shortened at her beauty - all the more extraordinary now in her vulnerability.

He shifted so that his palms rested on either side of her shoulders, his knees resting between her parted ones. They had lain together earlier - but the once was not enough. Could never be enough.

He eased downward so that his face was eye level with her soft, soft belly. The thin, silvery scars bestowed by Faith glowed in the half-light.

And then he kissed every single one of them.

Claire sighed beneath his lips - then went boneless - and then, after a while, began to quiver.

He dug his nose into the concave of her navel, eyes closed in bliss, inhaling the very essence of her.

And he waited until her hands tangled in the curls at the back of his head to look up at her. Meet her hooded gaze, watch her lips part in a soft sigh and her pulse flutter at her neck.

She pushed him down, and he basked in her.

Made her fall apart more times than he could count.

And when she finally - weakly - pulled him away, he instinctively crawled up her still-arched body to bump his nose with hers. She greedily claimed his mouth, shifting her hips so that he effortlessly slid home.

“I want you inside me always,” she cried, eyes so wide, and full of tears, and locked with his own.

“I am, *mo nighean donn*,” he rasped, tears falling from his eyes to mingle with her own. “For my heart beats within you.”


End file.
